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I have a few past comments pointing out that whether electronic voting is seen as a valid reason to distrust American election results by the mainstream depends
by makomk 6y ago
I have a few past comments pointing out that whether electronic voting is seen as a valid reason to distrust American election results by the mainstream depends entirely on which party has the presidency. The most vivid demonstration of this was Wired running two articles within months of each other, one before Trump won insisting that rigging an election that way was impossible and there were endless safeguards protecting against it, and one after he won claiming there were no safeguard and electronic voting machine hacks could easily rig an election, each backed by copious expert opinions, despite no new evidence appearing between the two. More subtly, remember how before Trump the last time electronic voting security was a major mainstream issue with Defcon events etc was when Bush won in 2004, it suddenly returned to prominence with Trump's 2016 victory, and now it looks like it's becoming a non-issue again.
- motohagiography 6y agoThe Youtube issue seems analogous in that it's ok if "our guys" prevail. My bias is it's hard to interpret things without empirically predictive power as meaningful. It's strange for me because I can see the rift between people as a tangible thing, where micro-classes have used the internet to become alien to one another, to where neighbours have developed completely different ontologies that are irreconcilably foreign. I think the problem is even those of us looking to bridge it keep looking for ways to repair it instead of forward to the ways in which it eventually heals. Youtube is doing this because they think they're going to win. I'd just like to take the other side of that bet.